Baku 2015: Young British divers make a splash at European Games

Baku 2015: Young British divers make a splash at European GamesIBTimes UK

In 2008, a 14-year-old Tom Daley captured the imagination of the British public at the Beijing Olympics and if performances at the inaugural European Games are anything to go by, Team GB have a host of young divers poised to follow in his footsteps.

In an impressive display of diving at the Baku Aquatics Centre, Britain's juniors garnered four golds, one silver and one bronze from eight events, suggesting Daley's 2009 world title could soon be matched by any one of the current crop.

James Heatly led the way for his teenager teammates when the 18-year-old claimed medals of all three colours, including a silver alongside 17-year-old Ross Haslam in the synchronised event, across the men's springboard diving disciplines.

"Feels amazing to get three medals, especially I didn't think that I was going get three, so I have overdone my expectations, and I think everyone else's," Heatly said on 22 June.

"I got a bronze the first day and a silver so to finish it off with a gold, it was just incredible."

Matthew Lee and Lois Toulson added gold medals in the men's and women's platform events, and Katherine Torrance was victorious in the 3m springboard competition in the Azeri capital.

Lee hopes his performance can pave his way on the road to Rio, where the 2016 Olympic games are set to be held.

"This is my first ever multi-sports games and a village atmosphere and it has been awesome. It is the best experience of my life, I hope to go to the Rio 2016 Olympic games, I don't think it is far-fetched, I just have to keep working hard and training hard and just keep being positive," said Lee.

Torrance, who triumphed to gold over Russia's Ekaterina Nekrasova on 21 June, said British diving was at its best at the games in Baku.

"I think British diving is in a really good place at the moment, because obviously with the team that we have got we have quite a few medals between us, and obviously we have the senior team that are doing quite well at the moment, so yeah, I think we are in a good place," she said.

Much of Team GB's success can be attributed to the Talent Identification (TID) programme that was implemented in 2003 and aims to identify potential future medallists and nurture them through the crucial fledgling years of their diving careers.

In the 12 years since its introduction, nearly 500,000 youngsters have been assessed in high-performance centres and talent development clubs with 2% selected to join the programme.